Tuesday, January 6, 2015

The Guest-Post Relationship

I doubt that anyone will get the reference to Laurie Anderson in the title, but I couldn't resist.
Back on December 20th, Valerie Leithoff wrote an op-ed piece in the Victoria Times-Colonist titled No Need to Fear Genetically Modified Crops. As usual, it puts forward the argument that GM crops are safe (the same conclusion reached by Nathanael Johnson at Grist.org), and takes up the company line that only GM crops will save us in the uncertain future.
Local author and former organic farmer Paula Johanson begs to differ in her response. She's also let me post that response here.

Paula Johanson
By permission of the author

In response to Valerie Leithoff’s commentary (“No need to fear
genetically modified crops,” Dec. 20), it is more correct to say Canada
is going to need thorough testing of genetically modified organisms in
the future.
The typical public response to GMOs can only be characterized as
“generally strong, negative, passionate and extreme” when people become
aware of unlabelled, incompletely tested GMOs in the food industry.
Leithoff is accurate when she admits people “distrust or fear the
unnatural essence of GMOs, and transferring genes from unrelated species
is comprehended as a Frankenstein-type experiment” and “when people
don’t understand things, there is a natural tendency to fear them.” It
is not things I don’t understand that cause me to distrust GMOs: it is
things I do understand that cause me to call for more thorough testing
and for labels on any resulting food products.
I write on science and health for educational publishers. For 15 years
as a market gardener, I sold produce at farmers’ markets. As well, for
eight years, I wrote columns for a newspaper in a farming community. I
have studied considerably to find out what the scientific community is
actually saying about GMOs. There is no need to fear genetically
modified crops simply because they exist, but there are plenty of
reasons for distrusting the motivations of chemical engineering
companies that produce GMOs and market products such as terminator
seeds.
It’s not only GMOs that need to be more thoroughly tested, but the
results of how GMO crops are grown in field conditions. Leithoff states:
“Farmers growing GMO crops that contain biological insecticide have
greatly reduced their use of highly poisonous chemical insecticides,
cutting their costs and harmful effects.”
Rather than using fewer chemicals because of growing GMO crops
containing biological insecticide, factory farms commonly grow GMO crops
such as Monsanto’s own Roundup Ready canola that survive being sprayed
with glyphosate (sold by Monsanto as Roundup) not only after planting,
but close to harvest. The result is the presence in the food-processing
industry of wheat, canola and corn that contain residues of pesticides.
New studies are being done to measure the effects of pesticide residues
in GMOs on animal and human health.
New and long-term studies are needed, because the papers Leithoff
mentions as showing no evidence of dangers were for short-term testing
in which laboratory animals were fed GMOs for 12 to 20 weeks. Some of
these tests have been discredited after independent analysis. New
studies are being done in which animals fed GMOs with pesticide residues
show sharply increasing health effects after six months to a year.
Leithoff mentions the future of climate change, saying “the use of GMOs
will allow us to adapt to the sudden, unpredictable changes [in
climates], since new varieties can be created quicky.” She states:
“Conventional crop breeding can take up to 15 years to establish a new
crop variation, but with genetic engineering we can establish a new GMO
variation in less than six months.”
Though our farmers will need to adapt to the reality of climate change,
Leithoff is in error: New GMO varieties cannot be produced and come to
market in six months or less. Wilhelm Peekhaus, in his book Resistance
is Fertile: Canadian Struggles on the BioCommons, says:
“While traditionally bred varieties typically come in under US$1
million, Monsanto has stated that a genetically engineered variety
requires at least 10 years to develop at a cost of between $100 million
and $150 million.
“By comparison, conventional breeders, assuming they had access to
sufficient research and development funds, could introduce between 100
and 150 new varieties in less time.
“Despite claims advanced by the biotechnology industry, intrinsic yield
increases, as well as disease resistance, grain size, maturation
period, and responses to biotic and abiotic stresses, are attributable
largely to the robustness of the traditionally bred germ plasm rather
than to the one or more genetically engineered traits inserted into the
seed.”
Many B.C. scientists are speaking about GMOs. Marine biologist
Alexandra Morton has written about GMO salmon. Herb Barbolet works in
food security and sustainable community development at Simon Fraser
University. The University of British Columbia’s faculty of land and
food systems conducts careful studies on some GMOs.
While it is refreshing to read an opinion from a local undergraduate
student of geography, it would be better to read an informed opinion
from a working scientist in an appropriate discipline.
Paula Johanson of Saanich is a University of Victoria graduate student,
and the author of several books on food and sustainability.

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Hitch-hiked across Canada in the mid-seventies, changing, in the process, from an Albertan into a Canadian. Entered post-secondary studies at Grant McEwan College in Edmonton, moving over to the U of Alberta a year later to read English Lit. Friends invited me out for a visit to Victoria, and a week later I had a job, place to live, and was enrolled at UVic. Married two years later, we had twins (a boy, a girl, and a vasectomy), moved back to Alberta where we ran an over-educated New Agriculture farm for fourteen years. After the kids moved out, moved back to Victoria where we discovered sea kayaking. Live quietly, trying to pursue a life of voluntary simplicity, although we occasionally fail to live up to our own ideals. Still married, 28 years later, to the same person--and quite happy about it. Currently working on a book about Canadian food security issues.